While we all stem the bleeding noses brought on by the excitement at the BBC's announcement that it is to become a web 2.0 company rather than a traditional broadcaster, there is something substantial that no one is talking about. The elephant in the chatroom is regulation. On many levels, Mark Thompson has played a blinder. The vision his technical advisers handed him is spot-on in some ways - subtle nods to the end of scheduled TV and the likely demise of the licence fee - but it takes a certain amount of undercarriage to announce and then implement a version of the BBC's future so different from its present. While one can only applaud the moves the BBC is making, there is room for some scepticism about whether in this world of communities and interactivity it is possible to be quite so "web 2" while at the same time retaining an undilutedly BBC audience and get away with it.

The timing for Thompson is also immaculate. Between charter renewal and licence fee settlement, Thompson has pretty much changed the entire footing of the BBC's structure and delivery. So the real test now is for the BBC Trust - the new inhouse regulatory system chaired by Michael Grade - and Ofcom, with its new role in assessing market impacts, as well as for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has to assess, first, to what extent it approves of the BBC's vision, and, second, how high a licence fee it should receive as a result.

It is a peculiar route that has led us here. It was clearly stated at Ofcom's launch that the internet would not be part of the regulator's portfolio. But when more than £400m a year of public money could potentially go into developing bold initiatives delivered through broadband rather than broadcast, somebody will have to carry out the due diligence. Will there be service licences? Who will consult the industry, and who will consult the consumers, many of whom are not yet in a position to have a view on whether spending money on social software is quite what they want - it is, after all, free elsewhere.

The problem again is that you have the industry (us), which sees the BBC's moves as a threat, and the citizen or consumer, who could benefit hugely. We are really back to square one with our philosophical dilemma over regulation - what is it actually for in the media? When one looks at the complete mess European competition regulation has made of the Premier League football rights deal, it is easy to see how interventionist policies can go awry.

Last Friday BSkyB won the first three available packages of rights - and will probably win a further two, with the final one going to, erm, someone else, maybe Richard Branson, or Channel 4 or ITV. This is a consequence of the EC thinking that all Premiership games being sold in one bundle was "bad for consumers". I cannot think of a single football viewer who would not welcome more live matches on free TV - but this will not deliver that. (Also I enter the caveat that the edges of the carpet in our house were chewed in frustration while watching ITV's terrible Champions League coverage of Villarreal versus Arsenal - which should be indictable under the inappropriate advertising break directive). It won't deliver what everyone really wants, which is a more accessible, cheaper or even free version of Sky's service. So how it benefits consumers remains a mystery.

If we have had 15 years to get the regulation of pay-TV rights packages correct and still can't do it, what hope is there for the next wave of media development? For people who can't tell their swikis from their tagclouds, the chances of unpicking the BBC's proposals - or indeed those of any other regulated business moving into a frontierless world - remain slim.